TFF is a network think tank with 80 associates around the world, two staff members at its headquarters, and volunteers based on Gandhian principles. Programs include conflict understanding and mitigation, alternative security, nonviolence, UN and the world order, peace research, education, advocacy, postwar reconciliation, and field work. TFF is also involved in providing lectures and conflict skills training as well as innovative theories and practical solutions. TFF has worked with the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia since 1991, Georgia since 1993, Burundi since 1999, and Iraq since 2002. It publishes a free newsletter, the TFF PressInfo and Peace Browser; Peace Tips; reports; and books. Its website, the Transnational News Navigator, has a large link section as well as 350 news sources. Other areas covered are nationalism and war, social science, international relations, strategic issues, foreign affairs, war and the media, human rights, third world studies, civic societies.

SIIA was founded as a politically independent public service institution for information and research about international political issues. Information activities are geared towards the general Swedish public, while research at the institute is conducted in contact and cooperation with both Swedish and international institutions and individual researchers. The institute also has an important function as a forum for debate on international issues and as a meeting place for academics, practitioners, journalists and politicians.

SIPRI was established as an international research institute to conduct scientific research on questions of conflict and cooperation that are of importance to international peace and security, with the aim of contributing to an understanding of the conditions for peaceful solutions to international conflicts and for stable peace. Research is organized into the following areas: Euro-Atlantic security and arms control; armed conflict and conflict management; nonproliferation and export controls; chemical and biological warfare; military expenditure and arms production; arms transfers; and IT projects. SIPRI's mandate is implemented through research that seeks to promote openness and transparency in the sphere of arms control and security. The institute aims to (1) help stave off the proliferation of nuclear weapons; (2) help prevent conflicts and search for regional resolutions of security issues; and (3) spread information on arms control and international security to the broader public.

The Institute's mission is the pursuit of futures studies and related activities with a view to stimulate a broad and open debate on future threats to and opportunities for social development. The first institute for futures studies, the Secretariat for Futures Studies functioned as a complement to the Prime Minister's Office. In 1980, the secretariat became a unit of the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, and in 1987 its activities were reorganized into an independent research foundation. The Institute's current major research program is "Shaping the Future: Demography and Democracy in the 21st Century." This program builds on central elements of the Swedish tradition on futures studies, in particular the powerful connection between futures studies and democracy. The program embraces three themes: demography and social transformation; welfare, power, and citizenship; and the community in the global economy. In addition, the Institute supports research on theoretical and methodological issues relevant to Swedish and international futures studies.